Rants and Raves on Espresso

Introduction

Here at CoffeeRatings.com, we prefer to be experimentalists rather than theorists. This means we may have opinions, but we try to back them up with first-hand experience — even if it means consuming coffee, Fear Factor-style, that we would much rather avoid.

“Starbucks coffee in a Clover machine? Who buys a $30,000 sound system to listen to AM talk radio?”

This past October, Starbucks finally started offering “Clover crafted Small Batch Coffee” at a few select locations. After giving them a few months to work out the kinks, this week we finally put our expectations to the test at the 295 California St. Starbucks — one of four San Francisco Starbucks featuring the Clover.

Having previously sampled Clover-brewed coffee at the likes of Ritual Coffee Roasters and Coffee Bar, we already had an idea of what to expect. So how would Starbucks’ coffee measure up with the same process and equipment?

Materials and Methods

We started by selecting their Papua New Guinea (aka “PNG”) Kainantu. We were first turned on to some of the excellent PNG coffees by Terry Patano, a longtime CoffeeRatings.com reader and co-owner of DOMA Coffee Roasting Company (Cour d’Alene, ID). And at $3.45 for a “tall”, compared to the others at $2.75 (Colombia Manzanares, Ethiopia Sun-Dried Sidamo, Bali Batur Highlands — and Guatemala Casi Cielo at $2.45), we figured we’d opt for something interesting enough to avoid low-balling our test.

Starbucks’ Clover set-up includes a nice Mahlkönig grinder, an array of Bodum Yohki storage jars containing their small batch coffees, and, bizarrely, a strange fetish for paper cups. If the Mahlkönig was promising, the stacks of paper cups was unsettling. After ordering, the barista immediately produced a paper cup — until we stopped her by asking that it be “for here”. Given the target experience of the entire Clover setup, this is like having to ask for the ketchup on the side when ordering your chateaubriand.

Following that incident, our wait for our coffee was at least five minutes. Part of this delay, we could tell, was because they don’t seem to get many Clover orders. This spelled trouble for the freshness of their coffee, as a low turnover rate will deaden even the freshest roasts.

Results

Now whether the original roasts weren’t very fresh, or whether they were left to grow stale after a couple of weeks, or whether the quality of the coffees themselves weren’t all that great — we can’t be entirely sure. But we suspect all three faults were at work when we say that the flavor of the Clover-brewed coffee here fared no better than meeting our low expectations: AM talk radio. (Not to mention that Starbucks likely burned some of the evidence of flavor out of their coffee using their typical roasting style.)

The beans did not carry distinctive flavors that we commonly found with other Clover brewings, and the finish even lacked some of the characteristic “clean” that the Clover can produce with high quality and properly handled bean stocks. In fact, we’d go so far as to say the coffee was no more flavorful than retail coffee beans we’d brew in our French press at home. Philz Coffee, by comparison, is far more flavorful, interesting, and even cheaper.

Conclusions

In these hyper-conscious economic times, spending $3.45 for filter coffee seems even more outlandish than the $4 latte (aka “Fourbucks”) — even if Starbucks charges less for Clover-brewed coffee than other high-end cafés. But the worst part isn’t that a $3.45 filter coffee seems as quaint as businesses that once slapped their logo on company Hummers for self-promotion. The biggest offense is that consumers are asked to pay double for coffee that ultimately tastes very pedestrian. Even if Starbucks’ high-end competitors charge a dollar more for their Clover-brewed coffee, it at least tastes like you’re getting something special for all the price and pomp.

Starbucks needs to rethink how they’re using the Clover in their stores — i.e., if they intend to keep using it at all. In the end, Starbucks’ purchase of The Coffee Equipment Company may prove to be an entirely defensive move — just as they did with the acquisition of Torrefazione Italia. If you can’t beat superior competition, buy them out and hide the evidence from customers that much better coffee ever existed.

Geez. thanks for taking the plunge for the rest of us. I actually had hopes that this might provide me with some decent coffee on those traveling scenarios where Starbucks is my only option. It really was too much to hope for.

Within Starbucks, it’s an improvement over their regular filter coffee. But their “Clover crafted Small Batch Coffee”® compares rather evenly with the filter coffee you would find at one of the more decent cafés in the Bay Area.

Which means the Clover-brewed Starbucks coffee isn’t a failure on its own merits by any means. But for half the price, you can get something just as good elsewhere — without use of a Clover or even a general vac pot. A simple French press with fresh coffee will do at least as well.

The way Starbucks has implemented their Small Batch Coffee program has rendered the expense and use of a Clover rather superfluous — it honestly adds nothing to the experience. As such, it’s a waste of the technology. Starbucks would do better to roast (the same?) higher quality coffees, keep their supplies fresh, and brew them into something other than an urn that sits for hours. Doing that, they should be able to deliver the same level of quality in the product for a lot less.

Clovers are nice and all, but I am not convinced that they make coffee any better than a french press. I occasionally get beans from Café Grumpy and my homemade french pressed versions are just as good as their Clovers IMO. If anything, the sterile “clean” taste at the finish is distracting.

It’s always been a dirty little secret that Starbucks baristas can be asked to prepare brewed coffee, at the normal price, with a press. This is just a higher-tech, higher-margin, PR-driven way of doing that.

Clovers, like vac pots, can do some really interesting things with the right kind of coffees: the more floral and fruity island or Central American coffees with a lighter roast, for example.

But we wholly agree with you about the comparison to a French press. There are some coffees, and the PNG may be one of them, where a Clover or vac pot doesn’t seem to bring out anything extra in the cup.

Agree. I tried a Clover the moment I saw one in a Starbucks. I assumed the somewhat-below-mediocre result was due to operator inexperience. They just took out the Starbucks near my workplace…closed for remodeling for a week while they install a Clover machine, so I thought I’d do a little research and see if they got any better with time. Found your review…I guess not.